Thursday, July 03, 2014

Freedom Rising

Make no mistake, the Supreme Court decision this week regarding religious freedom was about much more than 2 family owned companies and abortion pills.

It was about freedom.

It was about conscience.

Those two companies deserved that ruling under the law and America needed the ruling as a breath of fresh air as we labor under the repressive hand of the secular progressives presently in power.

A recent Gallup poll found that fewer people feel satisfied with the freedom in their lives than have since Gallup began tracking the freedom metric in 2006.

Here's why I believe the cause for freedom is beginning to rise and freedom is beginning to ring.

Unlike most all other nations, America knows what freedom looks like, and we know when it is suppressed.

Matt Bowman, writing for the National Review says, "Some commentators are mistakenly suggesting that the decision [by the Supreme Court] only applies if someone objects to the same 'four' early abortion causing items that the Court said the Hahn and Green families object to."

He says, "The Supreme Court's protections for religious freedoms apply to those who object to all the HHS Mandate, not just those who object to some of it."

Following the Supreme Court decision Monday, other courts have begun making rulings based on that ruling, with all favoring religious freedom.

While this ruling supports the pro-life belief of all biblical Christians for sure, it also favors the freedom so many feel they are loosing---or have lost.

Gallup said this week that there has been a 12% decline in people's satisfaction with their amount of freedom and the percentage of Americans dissatisfied with the freedom to choose what they want to do with their own lives has more than doubled from 9% to 21% in the last 7 years.

Gallup asks people in 120 countries if they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the freedom to chose what they do with their own lives.

America has always been #1.

Gallup says, "After 7 years and a 12 point decline, the US no longer makes the top quartile worldwide."

The United States is now #36.

New Zealand is #1.

Australia is #2 with even the United Arab Emirates at #5.

Gallup says that in "the past 7 years only 10 countries had declines as large or larger than the United States has seen."

When I looked at this list, seeing our own United States among the above, it was stunning. And it served as a reminder that "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he" is both a biblical proverb and a reality.

America has been told again and again during the past 7 years that we are not exceptional, we're merely one of the bunch. And every effort has been made to cause that notion to become a self fulfilling prophecy.

I was further stunned when I saw an exhaustive research report from Pew released last week in which they found an amazing 44% of respondents said they "didn't often feel proud to be an American."

Only 28% said they still believe America is the greatest nation on earth.

Most liberals and secular progressives fell into the 44%, with 60% of them not thinking too highly of our country.

However, 81% of conservatives, which would include evangelicals and conservative Catholics, said they feel proud of America.

In reviewing the Pew research, you will find a number of solutions, yet they only reflect the problems, not actual solutions.

There is no question that present leadership has taken America to a very low point in the minds and hearts of many. The man who claimed he would bring hope and change only brought change in the way of trying to remake America.

The result is hopelessness, reflected in these various polls and surveys.

Nowhere is any of America's problems linked to moral failure or rejection of God and godly principles.

There can be no political and cultural restoration without spiritual restoration.

With the recent rulings by the Supreme Court and the general condition of affairs in our culture, there seems to be an awakening to the fact that things are not right in America.

Daniel Webster, one of America's greatest Senators, articulated our times long before we got here:

"If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, then error will be. If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain ascendancy. If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will. If the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of this land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end."

Webster also said, "God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it."

Tomorrow we celebrate our Independence from the tyranny of the King of England.

The looming question seems to be, do we love liberty as our Founders loved liberty? And if so are we willing to guard and defend it?

I believe I hear the faint ringing of a bell in the distance. Could it be that Americans are beginning to awaken and remember the blessing and the prosperity and the freedom and the liberty that God bestowed on this great nation.Be Thankful. Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Informed. Be Blessed.